Odengate

This just in:

The Blazers have reprimanded Greg Oden for participating in a pickup basketball game at 24-Hour Fitness.

The club has resorted to treating him like a 10-year old child, chastising him through the media by blithely referencing his immaturity in the matter.

They're treating him like a piece of meat. A very valuable piece of meat.

Nate McMillan: "He wants to be the same young man as when he came here. And he's not. He's got too much value."

Too much value?

He's a human being! Imagine how he feels right now. These people who supposedly care about him and his well-being are just treating him like an investment.

Which, of course, he is.

But come time to sign a new contract, wouldn't you think he would appreciate a team that allows him more freedom in his personal life? I think he would appreciate being free to do things like play basketball in his free time at the gym with friends, or voice opinions about politics, as he recently did, without management breathing down his neck, worried that he might turn off fans and rich Republican business partners.

I'm still undecided about Oden's potential on the court, as he hasn't played a single game yet. But I have to say that his unwillingness to conform to the blandness of the superstar role is commendable. Oden could and would make more money in endorsements and attract a broader set of supporters if he stayed out of politics and kept his hair short all the time and just sat around his apartment all day. That's how the system works, and that's why you never heard Michael Jordan say anything about politics, even though he was a fervent Democrat. That's why LeBron James won't speak out against violence in Darfur, even though his excuses are asinine and without merit.

Greg Oden wants to live his life the way he sees fit, and he doesn't want to conform to the standards of executives who wear ill-fitting suits, and he wants to act his age.

And the Blazers have a problem with that.

Big surprise.

TJH

Back to the Grind

I'm no good at taking holidays.

I find that when I try to take a well-deserved break from my life, I end up doing, or wanting to do, the same old things I do all the time, and I think that makes me no good at taking holidays.

Example: I spent most of my time in Mexico watching basketball and listening to the Stone Roses.

Of course, this is mostly because I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs the first day I was there, and as I finished my 9+ hours of just laying on the beach, I realized I almost burnt my legs off.

No worries though - a bar was near, and the bar had League Pass, and I was content.

Days later, when I was back to walking around, I found myself on Isla Mujeres, a small island off the east coast far removed from anything basketball-related. I was walking down a street littered with food stands and residents selling homemade wares, and I saw a little boy walking right in front of me wearing a basketball jersey and shorts, dribbling a basketball, being chided by his parents to keep up with them. He was an American tourist like me, and he caught my eye, dribbling past fake defenders and jumping around with the ball, and then he starts to commentate to his fake audience, to my surprise:

"Brandon Roy, drives to the hoop for a slam dunk!!"

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Some thoughts from the past week:

- Did anybody else see Caron Butler deliberately punch Brandon Roy in the nuts, and why the hell wasn't he punished for it? Look:



The broadcast I saw only replayed it once, and the sound was off, so I couldn't tell if there were any prison-rules references made by the announcers. Roy tried to come back later in the game, but couldn't stay for long, and he's been out ever since. I understand how the refs may not have seen the play, but why wasn't Butler suspended after the fact, after review of the tape by the league office? Because Butler's an all-star, and his team is in the playoff race, and Portland was on the receiving end. I shouldn't have asked.

- Did anybody else see the back-to-back Warriors v Lakers games? If these teams meet in the first round, my head might explode. Just an overload of wildly entertaining, excellent basketball. And speaking of the first round of the playoffs, consider that there is a total of ONE AND A HALF GAMES seperating the first seed from the sixth seed. Seriously, look. I think Popovich was right: the word "upset" will have lost its meaning.

- Apparently back in Portland people were freaking out because Greg Oden allegedly played in a pickup game at his local 24-Hour Fitness. Blazers management is angry; Blazer fans are disappointed; I couldn't care less. The story is that he was riding a stationary bike and looking despondent, as usual, when he glanced into the gym and saw people playing a game he used to play, called basketball, and decided to give it a shot.

I can't imagine he was taking it all that serious anyways, considering they were just normal people playing ball at 24-Hour Fitness, and he is Greg Oden and 7 feet tall, whose last big concern was that he was getting too big and strong.

TJH

Maybe, just maybe

Maybe it's the blue skies, maybe it's the constant sun, maybe it's the palm trees outside my windows, but for the life of me I can't shake the feeling that we just might have a shot to sneak in to the eight spot!

Dallas just lost the big german for a couple weeks (and killed my fantasy team), and our next two games are against the Doormat Sonics and the Wiz, two very winnable games, and then we play the Warriors. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but we've been playing well lately, we out our old rotation back, a little of that 13 win swagger back, and who knows, maybe the Warriors got a little slump coming? Check out their upcoming schedule:

Lakers, Portland, Denver, Dallas twice, San Antonio, Memphis and New Orleans. They could easily lose 7/8. MAYBE?! Right?!

I wouldn't bet on it, but if we keep winning, it might be real interesting in the end. But then again, I don't want to get my hopes up. It's too sunny and nice outside (in LA) to eventually be depressed.

KT

Excuses, Excuses

Apologies to our loyal readers, readers who I would like to think are plentiful in numbers:

I put off writing about basketball for a week, as I decided to use the time to study for final exams.

I will put it off for another week, as I arrived in Mexico today, home of the "Five dollars for five minutes" internet package at various vendors throughout the area.

And... my five minutes are up.

TJH

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Bruce Bowen has made a career out of being a cheap shot artist.

He represents the heart and soul of the San Antonio Spurs franchise. Of course, the team is defined by bad sportsmanship, cheap play, and an incredible lack of professionalism, which Bowen, Duncan, Ginobili and company perpetuate day after day, year after year.

Here's Bowen's latest attempt at purposely injuring a player, who just happens to be the star of a possible playoff opponent:



Sure, he was suspended (again), but you could make a pretty good argument why a player like this should be banned for life. A trademark Bowen move is to wait for your opponent to take a jump shot over you, then slide your feet in underneath where your opponent will land, hopefully breaking his ankles. Naturally some players, notably Ray Allen, have taken offense at this, to the point where he started a name-calling fight through various media outlets.

Way to fight like a man, Ray.

The incredible thing, however, is that the Spurs are viewed as a beacon of what's right about the NBA. The term "model franchise" is thrown around freely, and announcers and pundits routinely extol the "professionalism" and "maturity" of the franchise.

Well, here's the reality: the San Antonio Spurs are the most unlikable, unprofessional, petulant, boring, and downright offensive sports franchise in the world. Offensive to anybody who prescribes to the notion that sports are inherently good, that they bring out the best in people, and that sports are a unique remedy to society's woes. The Spurs feast on idealists like me. There's no love in their game, there's no... good. San Antonio basketball is so far removed from the essence of sports, which can be operationally defined by the faces of kids as they run up and down the soccer pitch with smiles on their faces. Running because they can, dammit! Because it's nice outside and running after a ball is fun!

And believe it or not, this idealism isn't sufficiently shattered at the professional level. You see it all the time: young men and women, playing with pride, passion, joie de vivre, jumping up and down on the bench, hugging their teammates, screaming, getting involved with the fans. It's there - it exists. Of course, San Antonio is a desolate abyss compared to this. There's no fun in Spurs basketball. No passion. The players, as well as being crybabies (Tim Duncan) and pricks (Tim Duncan), operate with the cool, devoid-of-emotion steadiness of a hitman or a surgeon, something that any true sports fan should be fundamentally opposed to at every level. For this is what makes sports different than the political world, or the private business sector, or even Academia.

At the very least, the Spurs give us bleeding-heart liberals a common enemy. If the Spurs are playing, you should care, because at the very least they're an important team - important in the sense that you love, love, love seeing them lose. It makes me happy, that's for sure.

The sun is setting on their reign of terror, and it's always nice to see the bad guys lose.

TJH

Too Little Too Late

It's safe to say that the city of Portland has collectively given up hope on the Blazers' playoff chances. The dream is deferred yet again, as we adopt the all-inclusive, all-too-familiar maxim:

Wait 'Til Next Year.

Nevertheless, our team's still worth watching. Here's some reasons why.

1. If we were in the Eastern Conference, we not only would make the playoffs, but likely advance to the second round. The East is the NBA's Pearl Jam to the West's Stone Roses. Just shocking disparity. Actually, that comparison doesn't make sense, because Pearl Jam is extremely over-rated. Everybody knows the East sucks. Not everybody appreciates how terrible Pearl Jam is.

2. Jarrett Jack stepping out of bounds. It never gets old. I'm at the point now with Jack where I was with Rasheed, when I was actively rooting for him to get tossed from games for screaming at referees. I remember one time watching a game at my uncle's house and seeing Rasheed get tossed at the end of a close game, and my uncle yelling at me, "Why are you laughing?!? He cost us the game!!"

2A. Jarrett Jack's momentum-killing turnovers. They need to start tracking these in the box scores.

3. No tanking. Yes, yes, yes. Such a relief. I was worried that Portland would try to increase their draft position by losing games on purpose. I hate it when teams do that. In fact, I thought Danny Ainge should have been arrested for last year's Celtic tankjob, until the plan blew up so perfectly in his face. At this point, though, does it really matter what pick we get? Where will they fit in? How will they get minutes? This year's draft, contrary to popular belief, isn't that strong. Beasley is a headcase, Kevin Love is a prototypical slow white guy (or at least he will be at the NBA level), and OJ Mayo is a wildcard. The best prospect is probably Derrick Rose, but he seems destined to go to Memphis and waste his formative pro years away in obscurity in front of 800 fans a night.

4. Brandon Roy is kicking ass. Right now, there's five players who routinely take games over by themselves: Kobe, LeBron, Monta Ellis, McGrady, and Roy. That's it. Roy's in that group either because his team relies on him way too much and leaves no other option, or... he's actually that good. He gets double teamed down the stretch and gets hacked every time he drives the lane, and it doesn't seem to phase him. By the way, I'm working on a top-25 all-time Blazers list, which is why I haven't posted anything for a week, and Roy went from being off the list to halfway up in a matter of weeks. Let's hope calmer heads prevail.

5. LMA finally getting pissed off and dunking on people. Basketball's pretty simple when you break it down. You might have heard that he needs to post up more, or box out better, or develop a quicker first step to the basket. Those are all true, by the way, but his biggest problem was that he just needed to get pissed off more. This summer somebody needs to swindle him out of a bunch of money to keep him angry.

TJH

13 Points in 35 Seconds

Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant, to me, are the two most amazing basketball players on the planet. I don't think anybody should ever again question their basketball abilities.

Here's why:

Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a game. It happened two years ago and I'm still in shock.

Everybody remember's Kobe's night, but do you remember Tracy McGrady's 13 points in 35 seconds?



And best of all, they came against the Spurs...

TJH

The West

So the Blazers are officially out of the playoffs, which has been obvious since the flurry of injuries and the Jarret Jack experiment, but I was really hoping they were able to squeak out the 8 seed in the playoffs. But damn. Have you seen the Western Conference! It's amazing.

The Rockets are on a 16 game tear and finally moved up a few spots. That's what it takes these days in the West, a win streak of over 10 games to actually make some movement in the standings. I love that Yao Ming went down, not because I hate him, or Chinese people, or Tall Chinese people, but that I absolutely love Tracy McGrady. I will always have a spot in my heart for players who look like they don't care but kill everyone when they want to, ala Vince Carter, JR Rider, Rasheed Wallace...

Currently the Nuggets are in 9th, right behind the Warriors, and I sincerely hope that the Nuggets are able to get in by the end of the year. And who knows, the Mavericks may fall out of the top 8 by then. Sounds crazy, but that's just about how crazy the West is this year. They're 2.5 games out of first but are in 7th! I love it. They can't play D with Kidd, just like Phoenix with Shaq.

If we can package Jack and our lottery pick and maybe that big thing we say is our starting center this year for something that actually helps the team next year, who knows, maybe we'll be able to participate in the Western madness.

Bursts of Flotacious Excitement

Out of all the Australian bass players who are known for their funky style, willingness to play concerts naked in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and tour de force portrayal of Needles in "Back to the Future Part II", Flea has got to be my favorite.



Flea plays bass for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, one of the most popular bands in the world. He's a really interesting guy. He was a trumpet prodigy as a child before becoming one of the most technically proficient musicians on earth. He is known for his quirky personality and energetic/insane devotion to his craft. At least once, he was slapping his bass so hard at a show that he wore a hole in his thumb, which he naturally filled with Super Glue.

He loves basketball and has supported the Los Angeles Lakers since he moved to the United States at age 5. As it happens, he is arguably the most entertaining sports bloggers in the world.

Flea on loyalty: "as a dead serious laker fan i consider every other team and player my enemy no matter how good of a player or team they are and no matter how cool of a person they may be, they are my enemy."

Flea on Lamar Odom: "what a great all around player, that mischievious scalliwag. i am so glad he did not get traded for jermaine oneal, i love that guy even though he eyeballs my wife at every game we go to."

Flea on the Pau Gasol trade: "wow, i am still getting bursts of flotacious excitement over this trade for gasol.... i was in a vintage eyeglass store in pasadena when i found out and nearly trashed the place with a joyous jig of pure elation."

Read more at Flea's blog here.

TJH

The Commish

Fathers, lock up your daughters...

David Stern's in town!

That's right - the NBA's boss is in Portland tonight to watch the Blazers take on the revamped (and newly mediocre) Phoenix Suns. Phoenix is 2-4 since trading for Shaq, which is about what anybody with a pulse could have guessed.

Stern also found time to participate in an nba.com "live chat", which is a fun little game where everyday fans, like you and me, get to ask him a question, and he gets time to sit and formulate a calculated inoffensive answer.

Everybody wins!

You can find the chat here.

Here are some questions I would have asked him if I had the chance:

- Can you please give an answer regarding your unwillingness to step in and save the Sonics franchise that isn't wrapped in confusing legalese?

- Can you explain what efforts have been made by you, the owners, or anybody else in the league office regarding the possibility of changing the "bench rule" that cost Phoenix a shot at the championship last season?

- When can we bring back the NBA Old-Timers game for All-Star Weekend?

- Do you remember that time that Vernon Maxwell ran into the stands in Portland and punched that guy that was heckling him? That was awesome.

- Why haven't we heard anything about Tim Donaghy in months? What's the latest? Is he still alive?

- Speaking of referees, can you explain to me again why Joey Crawford was suspended last season - without blatantly lying?

TJH

A Wasted Opportunity

To simply say Portland played bad yesterday against the unimpressive Golden State Warriors is like saying election coverage is getting a little annoying.

Where do I begin?

- Was there some kind of wax applied to the surface of the ball before the game or something? We weren't just dropping easy passes; we were diving around on the ground batting the ball to teammates with outstretched fists, which made it seem like some sort of futuristic East Asian amalgam of soccer, handball, and grab-ass. I kept looking over at my dad throughout the game, and judging from his expression you would assume he was watching a slaughterhouse documentary or something.

- Stephen Jackson was on fire the whole night. He made four three pointers in the first half. So you would think there would be some kind of effort to pressure him on the perimeter, right? Wrong. Of his six three pointers, he had a guy in his face maybe once. With the game on the line, and with the ball in Jackson's hands, you know he's gonna shoot it. Doesn't matter if someone's in his face or not - he's not giving the ball up. Everybody in the building knows that. Might as well pressure him into taking a bad shot, right? Wrong again. Curse me and my dependance, and borderline obsession, with logic.

- Monta Ellis had 10 rebounds. He is 6-foot-3.

- How many times did Golden State just rip the ball out of a Blazer's hands? Even the normally mild-mannered Mike Barrett said the Blazers were playing with intensity befitting a pickup game, and even said at one point that they were playing like "a bunch of weak pussies". OK, he didn't say that. But it was implied.

There was no fire, no drive, and no passion to Portland's game, which doesn't bode well if the team if still ostensibly competing for a playoff position.

TJH

LA Story

If you missed the Blazers host the Lakers on Friday, you missed out. With Brandon Roy and James Jones back in the lineup, it's obvious that we won't be going into tank mode anytime soon. Sure, the only chance we have at making the playoffs at this point is if we reel off another 13-game winning streak (remember those days?), and considering our schedule, that would be impossible. But the Blazers are out of their mid-season funk, and the whole team is healthy, and the dreary winter is over, and life seems once again tolerable...

Some thoughts:

- The biggest difference in the play of the Blazers was simple: they were making their shots. It's funny how the mere presence of Jones and Roy elevated everybody's confidence and swagger. Steve Blake hit five threes - in the first half! Jarrett Jack didn't step out of bounds with the ball - not even once!

- Speaking of Jarrett Jack, he played his best two games of the season Wednesday, against the Clippers, and Friday. He's making his open shots, he's not turning the ball over, he's making smart dishes to open teammates... what's going on? Could we finally be seeing some consistency, some reliability in his game? Too early to tell, obviously, but wouldn't it be nice if McMillan stopped shuttling him around the lineup and just used him exclusively as the backup shooting guard, a situation where's he's actually contributing to the team in a positive way? When Jack starts, he plays poorly and the Blazers lose. Simple. Therefore, stop putting him in the starting lineup!

- I can't say enough good things about Travis Outlaw. To be honest, I never thought he would become one of my favorite players on the team, and I didn't think we should have signed him over Udoka. Actually, I thought they should have signed both, but my point remains. At this point, he has to be one of the best values in the league. He's got two more years left on his deal at $4 million per, and at that point, knowing Outlaw, he'd be happy to re-up for the only team he's interested in playing for. By the way, at the end of this contract, he will be a 26-year old veteran of 7 NBA seasons.

What's not to like about this year's version of Outlaw? He dives for loose balls, he skies over 7-footers for rebounds, he can hit threes now at a decent clip, and he hits eighteen-footers straight up, fading away, and falling down. He can dunk, he has a cool name, he has a great attitude, he's young, and he does things like this...



- The win over the Lakers should prove to the team that we can beat anybody. We don't really match up well with the Lakers, as we have nobody big enough to really handle Odom and Gasol, we can't grab offensive rebounds, and nobody in the league, let alone our team, can stop Kobe. And we still won by a fair margin, and to be honest, we should have won on Tuesday in LA. It leads me to believe that the reason we've been playing so poorly over the last month is a lack of confidence, focus, and intensity. You can see it in their faces, from as early on as the first quarter: some games, they just don't care. Call it youth, call it a need for maturity, whatever - this team was, and is, a playoff team when it wants to be.

TJH